Tag Archives: appreciate life

This week, use your camera to discover the endless variety that one thing can contain. It can be a single photo featuring some visual play on repetition and variation — ducks in a pond, each swimming in a slightly different angle, or a wall of stained glass in a church, each panel echoing the other. You could also opt for a series of shots showing the same place, person, or object in slightly different light (literally or figuratively, as the case may be). If you’re not sure how to approach this topic, just let your daily life guide you: every day, you probably repeat several actions, movements, and rituals without even noticing. Choose one and show how even within this repetition, there’s a wide diversity of experience.

“Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.” ~ William James ~

Slow down and pay attention to the world around you. Breathe and enjoy every moment noticing the subtle changes in the world around you, this will allow you to notice the subtle changes occurring in yourself if you take the time to connect with nature all the beauty in our lives.

For this week’s challenge, share a photo that says “temporary” to you. As always, you can take the theme in any direction you see fit — from the natural world to the human, and from the concrete to the abstract. I look forward to browsing your photos!

Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat. ~ Napoleon Hill ~

Imagine a world where nothing was temporary – scary right?? Life is just as it should be with everything temporary and evolving. This is why it is important to live mindfully and enjoy life’s every moment. Don’t focus on what you don’t have. Be happy with what you do have and strive to be a better person.

If we are content with life in the moment and slow down long enough to really communicate with family and friends, coworkers, and others in our lives think how rich your life will become. If we slow down while we eat and truly enjoy nutritious food and drink, think of how our bodies and minds will respond and gift us with good health. If we nurture our spirits with meditation, prayer, yoga, walks in nature, laughter . . . imagine how our unconscious will respond in a higher more compassionate vibration.

If you are ill, remember what it felt like to be healthy. If you are healthy, think about what that means and how it feels – cherish this time in life. If you are sad, remember what it was like to feel excited, happy, content. If you are loving life, enjoy and pay attention to how it feels in this moment. If you have lost your job, stop for a moment and give thanks to the job you had then feel what it will be like to have a new position. If you lose your home, stop to remember what it felt like to enjoy your space then give thanks and be ready for your new home. When in your new home give thanks daily for your blessings. When one door closes another opens – if you are paying attention opportunity awaits you.

Just think about the temporary stages of a child’s life. It seems as if in the blink of an eye their childhood innocence is over and they go out on their own. I feel childhood is temporary so each stage should be honored and cherished by all. The same with adulthood – honor each stage of your life. It is a gift!

Discovering the magic of sparklers

Whether temporary stages in a child’s life, stages of nature or manmade items (think telephones-cellphones, telephone cables – wi-fi, televisions, computers, automobiles over the last five decades compared to the last two years) everything is temporary.

Knowing this doesn’t mean we should become stagnated by fear – rejoice in transitions and remain open, each moment in time is temporary. Why let life’s journey frighten and stress you. Take a deep breath in – rejoice that you are alive, breath out – feel love and compassion for the world. The temporary stages of nature are quite breathtaking yet we don’t want to get stuck in any one for too long. The people living in locations where the weather remains pretty constant sometimes take it for granted until someone brings it to their attention or they visit another location. I remember when living in California I would mention how beautiful the flowers were along the walls surrounding communities. My coworker asked what flowers. She had lived in California her whole life and didn’t realize their were colorful flowers growing along every wall in the neighborhoods. The next time she took a ride away from the highway she noticed them as well and enjoyed riding with me to different locations. She was able to see through my eyes.

Ground carpeted in red!

Saratoga National Historical Park

Peaceful in winter

View of Hudson River from Route 4, Stillwater, NY

To visit my location you would want to visit at different times of the year to see all of the beautiful gifts of each seasons.

Today as I sit to write in my blog, it is cold outside and the windows are decorated in frost. Several black ravens are on the ground checking out the grass and flying up to sit in the trees. I sip on a cup of warm herbal tea listening to Enya on YouTube while a blend of Frankincense, Myrrh, On Guard, Breath, and Purify are diffused. It smells lovely.

Message of the day.

My home feels peaceful and calm. I have learned to pay attention to the energy of my surroundings, knowing that I can always shift this energy from rushed to peaceful with a meditation and a blend of essential oils in the diffuser. Some will say the oils are costly. I say, if they can help me maintain a sense of calm and peace it is well worth the pennies per drop. Stress is a killer and although life is temporary, I want to live everyday as if I have forever.

Once we embrace the fact that everything is temporary, it is best to remain active, learn and grow so when one door closes it doesn’t find you blocked. Keep a foot out the door with other interests, keep up to date on new discoveries, remain open to new ideas and opportunities, pay attention to your health – eat higher quality foods, drink plenty of clean water, exercise in nature, hug or sit under a tree, laugh and find joy wherever you are. Do something silly like jump in mud puddles, dress up for Halloween, wear that favorite outfit hiding in your closet, dance in the rain, run along the beach kicking the water into the air, sing loudly while riding in the car, call an old schoolmate, write a letter to an elderly relative, purchase a coloring book with crayons, create something fun, experiment, collect rocks.

Life is like play doh. Once you make something if left too long without being touched it becomes stiff and dries up. Better to take it apart and create something new so it stays fresh and flexible. It’s the same for our lives. If we sit too long we become stiff, if we don’t keep in touch with our loved ones the relationship stagnates, if you don’t stretch your mind you will dry up and become obsolete.

Be ready for endings and new beginnings – embrace the temporary as an awakening of your spirit preparing you for a new journey.

Wishing you a life filled with possibilities, movement, laughter, joy, fun, adventure, creativity, health, financial well-being, and spiritual awakening through all your temporary life events.

Love and Light!

If you would like to view additional photos for this week’s challenge or would like to post your own, click on the link below:

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. ~ Robert Kennedy ~

If you would like yo view additional photos for this week’s challenge or would like to submit your own, click on the link below: